Blatant LOPE ripoff (Where is Everybody?) second · 11:32pm Nov 11th, 2016
Twenty six of May. The power is still on. The water is still running. The phone lines and Internet still work. But I know that unless the entire crew of electricians and linemen and everyone else who runs them are still here, they won't last forever. I am still at home, and I found no trace of my family or nearest neighbors. I hope they will turn up while I'm still here. The first full day since everybody disappeared entirely without explanation.
Today, I tried something I hadn't done in years, and I wager I'll be doing it quite a bit more often. There are seven of us here, and I do not intend to share my restroom. As a good host, I let them squabble among themselves over who gets to use it. Or use them. One time as a kid, I urinated into a plastic bottle while in the car during a road trip. So I wouldn't make a mess, I placed a funnel Dado gave me under my thing so it all went into it. One of the others, the dog lady (Samantha) gave me an idea, and helped me execute it. I punched some holes into a plastic funnel then used some fishing line and dental floss salvaged from the abandoned Wal-Mart through the lined up holes, then strapped it onto my crotch. No, I didn't use a bottle, I just peed in the vegetable garden. I don't walk around with the funnel strapped on, but I keep it handy for emergencies. I'll be peeing through this funnel for a while, I wouldn't wonder.
For the second day this happened, I suggested we agree to meet back up at my place by dusk after we spread out to cover as much ground as we can. If there is anyone else who came back or didn't vanish, we want to find them. We did. Who? Curiously enough, two people who both were found in a parked car at the side of the road. I wasn't there, but the vehicle wasn't a squad car yet it had a two way radio in it. There were two guys in it, Monica and Sherman Hadley they introduced themselves as. When we asked what happened in the past two days, they only documented the last, early today as anything strange. They must have been away in limbo still on day one. Monica, a name strange for a man, claims to have been a police officer before this happened, and was on a three day trip from SF to LA with his brother when their car, speeding down the highway at 65 MPH, suddenly exploded in size, and he hadn't time to hit the brakes before his brother Sherman, the less outspoken one, hit the brakes. It was an active effort for Monica to hold the column while verbally telling his brother how hard and when to press the pedal. They eventually found the best place to come off the freeway and park by the side of the road to rest while there, one of my companions heard the engine start up, and went to investigate. It was the other guy, Anthony, who like me could sense the power around us who found them. I didn't think we'd see someone so quickly, presuming this wasn't a temporary thing. Monica is the more outspoken brother. Sherman is more shy. He talks, but he speaks less often than Monica, and only to speak facts he believes only he knows, or his opinion if he thinks it's not obvious, and we want to know. I wonder about Monica. I buy that he was a police officer, but something about a guy named Monica doesn't quite fit here. I'd rather not ask him.
Which brings me to another point. Two, actually. My voice is higher pitched than it was before. I wonder if whatever we are, in spite of having capability of human speech, have higher voices on average. I asked several of the others, and they all reaffirmed it. This includes the Hadley brothers.
Also, I had a hot dog earlier today. I can't recall the last time I've been so nauseous. I wasn't bent over the toilet, but I was outside by the curb. I felt queasy half an hour afterwards, and abruptly ran to the street to empty my gut. It was several minutes more after I got there before I finally vomited. I will note not to have any more hot dogs, certainly not beef in the future so long as this mystery remains unresolved. In fact I don't intend to put anything else in my body without somep-- somebody else trying it first. Where did this "P" in "Body" come from? Has my mind been altered vocab wise? Anyway... Apart from things I already ate on day one, eat nothing else. Make them my guinea pigs. Now there are nine of us. The most recent two additions are a young man named Monica Hadley with silver hair and his brother Sherman Hadley with purple hair. I never knew hair came in such colors without being dyed, but I'll believe most anything now. Fortunately for us, Monica is not only outspoken, but has a functional radio to communicate with anyone who might be listening. This will improve our search, but I think we should still continue the search we began early today. We need everybody we can get. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad I live in the widest metropolitan area in America. I always hated it for the pollution, but now it's been our benefit. I expect the air will only get cleaner in the next week, as I already feel good from breathing the oxygen in our atmosphere. Less people to drive, less poison in the air. Maybe that's my new strong senses, but the subtle difference in the air quality in two days from the first moment is remarkable. Had my sense of smell not been so dull before, I might not notice. I bet before the week is out, even my duller nose could tell the difference.
Yours truly, Alex Chance Torrez.
No seriously, why is she peeing through a funnel?
4325747 For the same reason s/he used the funnel during the road trip as a kid: S/he does not wish to miss the ditch s/he dug near the dividing hedge nor the trench by the vegetable garden any more than s/he had any desire for anything to spill from the water bottle. Sure, urinating into into it without can get most in, but the funnel assures all of it gets in. Got it?
Furthermore, Sweet Stuff was engaged to be married. Now she'll never see what was her husband to be again. Torrez, in spite of not caring about family until they've been gone for a week is sympathetic, and quickly sees her as a sister. Does that make sense? You might say they are funnel mates, a moment of bonding.
4326648
Well it's just... human women use a funnel b/c of weird human anatomy. When standing, the pee hole is pointed right at your legs. But with ungulates, the pee hole is pointed behind them, so the urine doesn't get on your legs. Either way, the ditch can't be that hard to miss. and peeing into bottles, you just... sit on the bottle. Never heard of using a funnel.
Mostly the funnel thing just makes your story unsettling with its affection for peeing.
4327026 Unsettling? The whole scenario with everybody disappearing in an instant, and several returning minutes later and a couple more coming back days later isn't unsettling? Nor is finding corpses with charred brains with no determinable cause, huh? How about being ripped away from your body in limbo and being forced into one of an alien horse and sent back without knowledge of the cause? Of course, this isn't written simply to fetishise urination. It's being used to bring a couple people in a strange situation closer together, especially since one clearly needs it more.
And about the bottles, there have been many times my plumage got stopped and I had to resort to plastic water bottles to pee in. I spilt some at points, so I had to resort to using a funnel to avoid any missing the mark. Furthermore, Torrez can't aim that way perfect, nor hold the funnel, so s/he has to resort to this fishing line threading to strap it on to be precise.
4327046
Unsettling to the reader, I mean.
Also, it's fine if they use a funnel, just not something most readers would accept without a lot of establishment.
4327673 I'll tell you what. Sweet Stuff was never one to be in the habit of sharing facilities if she could help it. The only person she even let in her house was her brother and fiance. She never let anyone else in there. And Alex is being a good host by not holding anybody else up.
You recall how in spite of being at opposite ends of the adaptive spectrum, Sky and WL were the only two characters to consistently get on from start to finish. That's Alex Torrez and Sweet Stuff here.